Ellis is obsessed with the spiders that inhabit the crumbling house where he lives with his dad, his older sister and Great-Aunt Mafi - and by a need to find out more about his mother, whose death overshadows the family's otherwise happy existence. He is a sensitive soul - awkward and out of place most of the time but funny, too, and with an embarrassing habit of speaking his thoughts aloud, whatever the company.

Three women linked by their blood, their dreams...and their sins. From Leningrad in the '70s to America and London in the present day, Kimberley Freeman's new novel follows the lives of two sisters, Lena and Natalia, and their cousin, Sofi, as they move away from Russia and all they have known. Despite promising to always take care of each other, a pact to meet every winter is shattered as their lives change and long-held resentments begin to surface. Can that resentment turn to hatred? To murder?

Lexi Sturgis is a woman in a man's world, a war correspondent whose life has taken her to some of the world's most troubled regions. Lexi is never happier than when she's dodging bullets, chasing down the leads that other reporters only dream of getting, or swapping stories with her rivals at the bar. She thrives on risk, danger and the thrill of the chase, while keeping everyone else at arm's length - colleagues, friends, and lovers.

A vivid glimpse of a Britain's 'brother country' through the eyes of a skeptical outsider, a profound exploration of fraternal love and a gripping journey of the soul. Summer 2008. Forty-year-old Salinger Nash leaves the London house he shares with his girlfriend, Tiane, for his brother's home in New Orleans. Carson Nash has persuaded Salinger that they should find their missing father, Henry- last known location New Mexico.

Love, sex, death, family, friendship, betrayal, tenderness, brutality, sacrifice and revelation. This incendiary collection of stories from acclaimed writer Christos Tsiolkas, best-selling author of The Slap and Barracuda, takes you deep into worlds both strange and familiar, and introduces you to characters who will never let you go and situations that will haunt you forever.

American Maggie Monroe is a journalist for New York's hard-hitting current affairs show Newsline. Independent and fearless, the more cutting-edge the story, the happier she is. But when her next assignment turns out to be an in-depth documentary on the decline of England's ruling classes, she's furious at being sent to cover a bloody tea party.

In a beachfront mansion in Martha's Vineyard, Annick and Rebecca relax, safe in the knowledge that their young children are in the care of lifelong friend Tash. But by the end of the afternoon, one of the children will have vanished.... Annick, daughter of an actress and an assassinated president, has spent her life running from the truth of her family's wealth. Rebecca has always done the right thing. Perfect daughter. Perfect wife. Perfect mother. She's beginning to wonder if she'll ever get chance to live for herself.

Nine-year-old Tooly is spirited away from Bangkok by a seductive group of outsiders who take her from city to city across the globe. At 20, she is wandering the streets of Manhattan with a scribbled-on map, scamming strangers for her shadowy protector, Venn. Now, aged 31, she runs a secondhand bookshop on the Welsh borders and has found peace with her strange upbringing - until she's called to return to New York to see her dying father. Warm, hilarious and fizzing with intelligence, The Rise and Fall of Great Powers is a masterpiece about the search for identity.

When Anjali finds out that Jack, her boyfriend of 10 years, has been cheating on her, it throws her world into chaos. Heartbroken, she fills the emptiness by embarking on a series of flings that her traditional Sri Lankan mother would (mostly) disapprove of. Yet she can no longer avoid her mother or Shanthi, her distant older sister. And so begins her real journey, one that will make Anjali confront a past she's been desperate to forget. But maybe the past can also be the bridge to her future....

Lou Clark knows too many things.... She knows how many miles lie between her new home in New York and her new boyfriend, Sam, in London. She knows her employer is a good man, and she knows his wife is keeping a secret from him. What Lou doesn't know is she's about to meet someone who's going to turn her whole life upside down. Because Josh will remind her so much of a man she used to know that it'll hurt. Lou won't know what to do next, but she knows that whatever she chooses is going to change everything.

East Yorkshire: Single mum Alice Lake finds a man on the beach outside her house. He has no name, no jacket, no idea what he is doing there. Against her better judgement, she invites him in to her home. Surrey: 21-year-old Lily Monrose has only been married for three weeks. When her new husband fails to come home from work one night, she is left stranded in a new country where she knows no one. Then the police tell her that her husband never existed....

Set in the 1980s against the backdrop of a swiftly gentrifying Manhattan, The Lost Language of Cranes tells the story of twenty-five-year-old Philip, who realizes he must come out to his parents after falling in love for the first time with a man. Philip's parents are facing their own crisis: pressure from developers and the loss of their longtime home.

A middle-class woman at her wits' end and a struggling migrant worker with few options for survival. When tensions boil over, who will be the first to snap? Will it be Theodora, finally breaking under the pressure? Or Mona, desperate to find a way out? Two women. Two stories. Who do you believe?

Spanning four centuries, The Long Gaze Back features 22 new stories by some of the most talented Irish women writers working today. Taken together, the collected works of these writers reveal an enrapturing, unnerving, and piercingly beautiful mosaic of a lively literary landscape. The anthology presents an inclusive and celebratory portrait of the high calibre of contemporary literature in Ireland. These stories run the gamut from heartbreaking to humorous, but each leaves a lasting impression. They chart the passions, obligations, trials and tribulations of a variety of vividly drawn characters with unflinching honesty and relentless compassion. These are stories to savour.

France, 1916. Sophie Lefevre is ordered to serve the German officers who socialise in her hotel. When the new Kommandant sets eyes on Sophie's portrait - painted by her husband Edouard - a dangerous obsession is born. Almost a century later, Sophie's portrait hangs in the home of Liv Halston. A chance encounter reveals the painting's true worth - and its troubled history that is about to resurface and turn Liv's life upside down…